


recantation

by reogulus



Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: Chocolate Box Exchange 2021, Chocolate Box Treat, DUI Bail Out, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Mentor/Protégé, Mildly Dubious Consent, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 06:07:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29466975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reogulus/pseuds/reogulus
Summary: “I think I really could have killed someone tonight.”
Relationships: Kendall Roy/Frank Vernon
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	recantation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arbitrarily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arbitrarily/gifts).



“You remember the first lesson I took in your Cessna?”

Frank looks up from the worn-out beige-ish grey-ish counter where he’s been filling out the forms under the warm incandescent light. Kendall lurks behind him, slouched, his shoulder slumped even lower than usual.

“’Course I do. That was barely two years ago.” He got flying lessons for Kendall’s fifteenth birthday, a treat for making it out of his middle school years in one piece, more or less. Apart from his affinity for Maybachs he’s never been much into cars, dragging his feet about driving lessons, unusual for boys his age. Frank thought a taste of piloting might be the right move for switching things up a bit, but Kendall just went to the first three lessons and dropped the rest.

“I’m sorry I didn’t keep at it.”

Frank takes a pause, lifting the tip of the ballpen slightly so it does not leave an extraneous mark on the paper.

“That’s okay,” he says, looking back over his shoulder at Kendall, the boy chewing on his bottom lip with his eyes downcast. He seems a bit less shaky now than when Frank first saw him that night, walking down the hallway beside the police officer.

“I’m…” for a split second it sounds like another apology’s coming. “Thanks, Frank.”

Had Kendall’s first DUI happened in an aircraft, Frank doubts he could have done much good as the single phone call from the holding cell.

It’s not the first time Kendall called him when Frank is technically no longer a Waystar employee. He’d called Frank for much less, to talk about school sometimes, ask about math homework, or ask Frank what he’s been reading lately. As a habit carried over from Kendall’s childhood, Frank still loans him books semi-regularly, usually non-fiction. He doesn’t expect Kendall to have read any of them or even look beyond the cover. But no one else ever asks him about what he’s reading, so Frank answers, really answers, wrapping the telephone cord around his index finger once at the end of every sentence. Kendall just says “uh-huh, cool” and moves on to whatever he wants to talk about next. He learns his listening skills from his father, obviously.

They won’t be talking about books tonight, to be sure. Bail’s been paid and Frank just got off the phone with the other lawyer, everything is in order, Page Six won’t catch a whiff of this, the hounds will be reliably pursuing some other rich kid’s trail. The new point person for PR is good; _really_ good, a young woman named Karolina or Carolyn. Frank was impressed enough to give her the tip on an internal posting for in-house Associate Manager coming up at the head office. She was sufficiently confused when Frank made clear to her that she may want to think twice about leaving his name as a referral on the application.

“Let’s go,” Frank buttons up his jacket, glances over to make sure Kendall does the same before they head out to the parking lot. It’s well past two in the morning, the air feels sharp and damp in his lungs. The rain has stopped by now, but still, it lingers in wait. The asphalt glistens under the hazy orange lights.

“The new guy sucks, by the way.” Kendall says, fitting himself into the passenger seat. “Dad’s been staying up past midnight shouting at him over the renewal negotiations every day this week.”

“Well, he’s new. I was new once, too.”

As he starts the car, Kendall cracks a faint smile. “Not to me, you weren’t. Did HR get you the severance yet?”

Seventeen years old and he tosses around words like _severance_ and _renewal negotiation_ like he’s known them since utero. “I’ve only been gone two weeks, Ken. Nothing they haven’t seen before.”

“Figures.”

“Let’s get you home.” Frank makes a turn out of the parking lot. There is no one else on the road; he flicks on the turn signal anyway.

The sky was cloudless, a heartrending blue. Kendall came running to him after his first landing, shouting at the top of his lungs, “You should have come for the ride, Frank!”

He put a hand on Kendall’s shoulder and ruffles his hair with the other. The boy was practically vibrating with excitement. Frank doesn’t recall seeing Kendall like that again since then.

“You should have seen me, Frank. You should have come.”

“Next time,” Frank remembers himself saying. And then there wasn’t; he left Kendall’s instructor with free access to his Cessna, but he never made time to watch Kendall fly again.

There’s a 24-hour diner with those dizzying neon lights, right off the freeway exit. The type of signs that tend to feel particularly hypnotic on nights like this, their colours filtered through raindrop-speckled windshields and tinted car windows. Kendall has been grumbling about a bathroom break and Frank can feel the onset of protests from his head and his stomach in the form of a migraine and a grumbling, so here they are, still an hour away from Kendall’s home. It’s the first time Frank’s felt actually tired in two weeks, since he packed up his office on Logan’s instruction.

They’ve been served eggs, bacon, toast and coffee—apple juice for Kendall, due to Frank’s veto of his request for a vanilla milkshake. Kendall hasn’t touched the glass, he’s still focused on picking apart his eggs. They are still a bit runny for scrambled.

“Something on your mind?” Frank asks as he chews on a piece of bacon.

“I think I really could have killed someone tonight.”

“Come on,” Frank says, unthinkingly dismissive, like he’s talking Kendall out of a bad pitch thrown at Little League. Of course he knows how fucked up it is, how fucked up it _could have been_ —Roman caused a real stink finding weed in Kendall’s bedroom last summer in the Hamptons, and that was barely a year ago. Here they are, on this cold October night, DUI charge for cocaine use. God knows how he even met those kids who got him into the driver’s seat with the state he was in.

“Listen, Ken. It’s not too late, alright? Your dad won’t know. But just because it’s not going on your record, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. You can’t touch that stuff again.”

“Yeah, I won’t. I promise.” He looks up at Frank—eyes no longer bloodshot and red-rimmed—and Frank knows he shouldn’t believe it. Kendall is going to be in college next year, he will be around it whether he knows it or not.

“Yeah,” he nods, “I know you won’t. You’re a good kid, Ken. Now, eat up.”

He watches as Kendall scoops up some eggs and takes the first bite. The portions aren’t large, he isn’t sure if Kendall is hungry, but he feels it would be a good idea to eat something, he’s not sure Kendall would take the initiative to feed himself when he’s alone in the house and the house staff likely won’t ask him. Logan will be out of town for the negotiations until the end of the week—a small mercy.

“Are you sure dad won’t find out?” Kendall asks between bites.

“Well, it’s supposed to be sewn up tight. If he finds out, he finds out. But you know, it won’t go further than him. And he only wants the best for you.”

“If he knows you covered this up for me he might not hire you back, like for real, this time.”

Frank shrugs. He’s almost done his coffee, which only leaves a burnt taste in his mouth. “I’ll start looking at the job ads properly, then.”

“He will find out whichever company hired you and put it out of existence and have you back. If I were him I would probably do the same.”

“That is indeed a possibility, but perhaps not a probability.”

“You really have got to stop talking like that,” Kendall takes a big gulp of the apple juice, “dad really hates it when you do.”

The first time Frank was asked to stay for the punishment beating, Kendall was thirteen. It was for something stupid that the boys did together, Connor and Roman too, when they spent Christmas at Cheltenham and Caroline had calibrated her timing precisely to bring it up, accusing Logan of subpar parenting on New Year’s Eve.

Behind closed doors he was asked to witness Kendall’s, and only Kendall’s punishment—the other boys were to be dealt with at another time, or so Logan declared. Kendall didn’t flinch at the ruler on the knuckles, counted out loud one by one. Logan’s eyes were pinned on Frank so as to ensure the other man would not look away from Kendall’s reddened hands.

“Now, bend over,” Frank watched as Logan’s fingers undid Kendall’s belt buckle and zipper, pulled the boy closer to his seat and tugged him downward until he was facing down, bent over Logan’s lap in his underwear, pants pooled around his thin ankles. Standing where he was, directly on the other side of Logan’s desk, he could see Kendall’s shoulders trembling with silent sobs.

Logan rested his palm on Kendall’s right cheek for a second. He held Frank in his gaze for what felt like an eternity, before raising his hand and saying to Kendall, “The Presidents, starting with George Washington. Go.”

Frank pays the bill, orders a second coffee to go while he’s at the register. He holds the door open for Kendall on their way out. The boy is slower to walk to the parking lot this time.

“Can you stay with me a minute?”

Frank sighs. “I’m not going into the house with you, Ken.”

“It’s not like anyone will see you come in. Nobody is home.”

“I just can’t.”

“Okay,” but Kendall’s hand was quick to stop Frank’s wrist from turning, as he slots the key into ignition. “Can we stay here a minute, then?”

Frank’s too tired to think about this further. “Sure.”

In hindsight it is plain what Kendall took as consent. It is a classic Roy trait, again, listening but hearing only what you want to hear, reality bent effortlessly out of shape to suit your liking, your world, your desires in a fraction of a second. The full cup of coffee spills onto the car floor, and before Frank can register if it’s splashed onto either of them, Kendall has cupped his face in both hands, pressing himself into Frank’s arm. Frank freezes.

“Please,” Kendall whispers hotly into his ear, and Frank feels a kiss pressed into his jawline. It makes his gut churn. He cannot feel his legs.

“Kendall—” Frank tries to turn to Kendall, to look into his eyes and check his pupils— _did he snort something when he used the bathroom back there_ —but before he can say _stop_ , Kendall’s mouth has covered his. Wet, open, warm. Close enough for Frank to make out the specks of powdery white under his septum under the dim light.

It’s enough to make Frank forget that his left arm is free to open the car door and clear a path for him to flee.

“You are the only one who’d do this for me, Frank,” Kendall says, breathless, and for years afterwards Frank is left wondering what _this_ refers to, exactly. “You’re always _watching_ —watching _out—_ for me.”

And that’s what the word brings to Frank’s mind—cold, steely eyes of Logan’s, looking straight into Frank’s eyes as he delivers the beats of punishment to Kendall’s body. Before Kendall can bring himself closer, Frank throws open the car door with his left hand, and the contents of his stomach rush back up his esophagus, pouring onto the rain-slicked asphalt. The cold air rushing into the open collar of his jacket is the only reminder of shame to keep him alert for the rest of the drive.

Frank wipes his mouth on his sleeve, sits upright again and shuts the door. He wills himself not to look askance at Kendall’s lap, the slight tenting in his crotch, the mirroring interest in his own body that amplifies the sound of blood rushing in his ears. 

Before pulling out of the parking spot, Frank turns on the radio. Kendall turns to lean against the window, the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up, his face completely obscured in the shadows.

The clock shows 4:27AM when Frank pulls up to the Roy residence.

Kendall gets out of the car. “We don’t have to talk about it,” he says without looking at Frank, leaving the passenger-side door open. “It was my bad. Everything was.”

“No,” Frank responds quickly, unsure which part of Kendall’s words he is most eager to negate. 

“It must have felt good.”

“What?”

“Back then, when dad got you there as the witness. You know he never hit me quite that hard for that bit, after the knuckles are done, right?” Kendall chuckles. Frank’s stomach lurches as it registers, to his quiet sobering horror, how much deeper and louder Kendall’s laugh is now.

“I always remember the second half better, though. The shame is supposed to last longer than the pain, right? I think no matter how many raises dad gives you, you’ll never feel more powerful than when he did that. You just can’t help but watch me as closely as he wants you to. But you will never do a thing about it.”

“That’s not true, Kendall,” Frank denies, his voice barely a whisper.

“Thanks, Frank,” Kendall says, for the last time that night, throws the car door shut with the force of his entire body.

Frank sits in the driveway in wait, as Kendall disappears behind the double doors. The porch light turns on, and then off again. In the darkness, he rests his foot on the brake until some feeling returns to it, until he allows himself to be unfrozen.

Frank doesn’t remember the rest of the drive taking himself back to his own apartment. The only evidence that remains is the smell of cheap coffee permeating his car. The answering machine beeps with a glaring red dot. As if on autopilot, Frank walks over and presses play. He would love to hear anything else to occupy his mind before heading to bed, even a telemarketer's spiel.

_“Good evening, Mr. Vernon, this is Joan calling from Mr. Roy’s office. He would like to see you back at the office at seven o’clock sharp, Monday morning. The courier will arrive tomorrow morning with the banker’s boxes he’d like you to look over before then.”_

**Author's Note:**

> I was in the shower, the holy place of all dirtybadwrong fic ideas, and I finished writing this in about four hours. Happy Valentine's Day! May this show return to us ASAP in 2021 and spur me into writing more Sir Francis of Assisi!


End file.
